Next day found Louis in a state far from tranquillized. Thorough
dissatisfaction with himself, had prevented his eyes closing
during the night; and he arose in the morning, only to continue
his self-accusations. He condemned the indulgence of feelings so
inconsistent with his usual candour in dubious circumstances, and
which had hurried him, not only into an unreasonable despair of his
own situation, but, with the most dishonouring suspicions, to provoke
the man, who, it was madness to doubt, was the confidential colleague
of the Baron de Ripperda. And yet, while he vowed to himself, that no
privation of air or action, no solitude and monotony of life, should
ever excite him to a second murmur; while he panted for the moment in
which he might repair, by a full apology to the Sieur, the indignity he
had cast upon him; he could not warm the chill at his heart, when he
recollected that the first amends Ignatius was likely to demand of him,
would be to relinquish all hope of seeing the Duke of Wharton.
This conviction threw his still agitated mind into tumults. In the
parting interview between him and Mr. Athelstone, that venerable man
had taken off the absolute terms of his interdiction respecting the
Duke. In the wide and busy world, his nephew and Wharton might meet
again; and in circumstances that Louis could not bend to his promise
of avoidance. On this ground, the Pastor now left him to his own
discretion. "But, remember," added he, "it is to your _discretion_!"
Louis thought on this licence from his revered uncle, with the
outstretching arms of his soul towards his beloved friend; and, he
vainly pursued his laborious penmanship, to get rid of the attendant
ideas. The well-known voice, calling on him through the crowd, haunted
his ear. Again, and again, the form of his friend, leaning towards
him from the car, rose before him. He threw down his pen, and rested
his working brain upon his hand. He could not recollect how Wharton
looked, for he had not seen how he looked; all that his glad eyes had
taken in of that dear apparition, was, that it was him! That it was his
resplendent countenance which shone on him from that gay eminence!
"And I must not see it again!" cried Louis, "all with whom I am
connected, seem leagued at one time or other to exclude him from my
society. But they never can shut him from my heart. His gracious
selection of me, from a crowd, older and of more approved merit than
myself; his own distinguished qualities and irrepressible confidence
in my honour, have bound me to love him through a life that is
condemned to fly him, as if he were my direst enemy."
Louis opened his writing-case to recreate his eyes with the sight
of Wharton's letter, that he might hear him speak through that at
least; but as soon as he touched it, and saw the superscription, whose
characters again recalled the image of the writer, and with it the home
in which he had first read the letter; he dropped it back into the case.
"I will not further un-nerve myself," cried he, "by pressing memory on
my heart! I will not pervert hours of past happiness to the purposes of
present wretchedness. I must remember that I am called to self-denial;
and you, dear generous Wharton! fated to be my first, are to continue
my repeated sacrifice."
Louis was found at noon by his punctual visitor, seated at his desk
with his former diligence. A slight hectic coloured his cheek as he
rose to receive him.--The Sieur smiled. Louis again saw the heaven
open, which had beguiled him into confidence on his first arrival, and
this smile was not so flitting as its predecessor. It dwelt on his
features like a bending seraph lingering on its cloud.
"Louis," cried he, "I come to trust you."
Louis caught the hand which was extended to him, and pressed it to his
lips.
"I come to trust you," said he, "but not as I see you expect; I come to
call again upon your faith, to fulfil the whole of this affair, while
you must yet remain ignorant of its particular purpose; to _trust in
your honour_, that you will not further doubt the integrity of the
man on whom your father has conferred confidence without reserve. His
interests and mine are united, never to be separated in this world:
we rise, or we fall together. You redden Louis! But I do not trifle
with you. It is possible that accident, if not design, may betray a
scheme of such important bearings; and I will not leave it in the power
of malice to accuse the son of Baron de Ripperda of treachery, or of
imprudence in such a case."
"My recent conduct," replied he, "gives you no reliance on my prudence;
and you believe me unworthy of fuller confidence."
"No, Louis,--that I still hold you in ignorance, is a greater proof of
my dependence on your fidelity, than if I bound your personal interests
with your honour, by unfolding to you any part of the glorious plan
on which you are employed. Your oath ties your conscience to the
fulfilment of your duty, but I want your free-will. I want, what I
thought I had. The open eye of faith in the virtue of your cause,--the
forward hand of zealous devotedness in the execution. Give me your
mind, Louis, and I shall no longer see that changing cheek and languid
frame? Zeal is life."
"Again I pledge myself," returned he, "I will be all you require,
only trust me!" Then with a sudden paleness displacing the flush of
resolution, and with a forced smile, he added, "I know I must prove my
sincerity by a victim; and I yield a dear one. I will not see the Duke
of Wharton, till you or my father grant me that privilege."
"To see him," replied the Sieur, resuming his usual austerity, "it is
probable you may one day have perfect liberty, but never to cultivate
his friendship."
"How?--Wherefore?"
"He is the enemy of your father."
"O, No--I have reason to believe he would gladly make my father his
friend."
The moment this had escaped him, Louis could have plucked his tongue
out for having uttered so inconsiderate a speech; so much did he
fear that Ignatius would immediately demand what was that reason. But
for once, the sagacious politician lost an opportunity of acquiring
information respecting the views of a rival. Absorbed in the haughty
consciousness of his own pre-eminence, he did not put the dreaded
question, but with a scornful motion of his lips, replied.--
"I doubt it not.--But Philip Wharton would purchase without gold. He
may defraud, but he cannot bestow."
"I do not understand you, Sir?"
"Future events will speak plainly," returned the Sieur, "and meanwhile,
I rely on your engagement to avoid him."
Louis smothered an indignant rising in his bosom, and without
answering, bowed his head in ratification of his promise.
Ignatius turned to the table, and gathering up the manuscripts
prepared for him, told his now silent companion, that he need not
resume his labours till he had taken the air on the terrace. "But,"
added he, "you must not forget that for every day, until I direct
otherwise, the garden is your utmost limits."
"I shall not wish to extend them," replied Louis, with a resigned but
lofty bow, and the Sieur left the room.
With his expanding heart again closed by the repulsive demeanor of his
governor, Louis saw him depart. A feeling of complete desolation spread
over his soul. Without having found comfort in his presence, he felt
a more dreary loneliness when he was gone, as the hope of winning at
all on his unbending nature, seemed utterly at an end. He had tried
it, by anticipating what he knew would be exacted, the resignation
of his friend. But Ignatius had received the sacrifice, not merely
without sensibility, but with the most unsparing remarks. The tender
care with which all his good dispositions had been fostered by the
secluded guardians of his youth, made him doubly feel how sterile is
the communion of the world. Interest may bind man to man, and extort
the convenience of virtue; but affection is not there, to nourish or to
reward its growth.
"Misjudging Ignatius! he demands my mind, when he might have my heart!
I would love him, but he will not let me. In vain I watched for another
of those smiles; the first, I hailed on my arrival as an earnest of a
gracious master! And the second, which greeted me to-day, as a pledge
of forgiveness of my yesterday's impatience, how soon was it displaced
by the hard aspect of despotic command! But I deserve it," exclaimed
he, "did not my humiliation, at having so frantically rebelled, vanish
as soon? I was even on the point of a second violence, had not some
good angel stilled the tumult in my breast." Having walked his dismal
apartment some time, continuing the same soliloquy, he threw himself
into a chair to compose his mind, and to confirm it. He arraigned
himself for the weakness of his present discontents, and summoned his
best reason to the forming a steady resolution of pursuing his duty
upon the principle of enduring as well as acting. He reviewed the past
and the present with an impartial eye; and where he saw he failed,
condemned himself with an inexorable judgement.
In this hour's communing with himself, he found how different is the
real from the imaginary contest; how wise is speculation, how absurd
practice; how easy profession, how difficult performance; and that of
all conquests, that of reason over a refractory heart, is the hardest
to acquire. After these humbling reflections, he walked forth a victor,
though a wounded one, to cheer himself with the glories of the setting
sun. Its reclining orb had never failed to recall the compact which
his heart had made, when he beheld it for the last time on the verge of
his native hills. But this evening, its mild religious light, gradually
withdrawing into the clouds, as the golden disk sunk beneath the earth,
reminded him so touchedly of the venerable saint whose emblem he had
called it, that he could not forbear exclaiming,
"Yes, my revered uncle! Those pious hands shall not always be raised
in vain. I trust, that henceforth I shall do my duty in a manner
more befitting the character you fondly believed mine; but on which,
recent experience has too repeatedly shewn me, how slight ought to
have been my dependance. For your sake, dear instructor of my youth!
I will do all, and be all, that is required of me. I will forget your
graciousness, that, in this land of severity, I may act worthy of your
hopes. _They who led me away captive, require of me a song, and melody
in my heaviness_! and, for thine honour, gentlest of human beings, I
will _take my harp from the willows_, and be as happy as this stubborn
heart will let me."
For several succeeding weeks, Louis steadily obeyed the law he had
enjoined himself. The exasperation of his mind gradually subsided;
his awakened sensibilities sunk to repose; and he concentrated his
thoughts as much as possible upon his unchanging toil. As he constantly
passed part of every day in the open air, he found companions, and even
social ones, in the birds he fed with the crumbs from his breakfast.
Their grateful chirpings were cheerful; and as he paced the snows of
the garden, his blood regained its vigour, and the elasticity of his
spirits revived. Again his cheek wore the brightness of health; and his
volant step, too often reminded him how narrow were his boundaries.
His eye, however, was yet free to range; and its excursions were wide
as the horizon. It sought the heights of Mount Calemberg, whose hoary
summits mingled with the hazy west; or when the winter day put on a
fairer garb, he contemplated their snowy peaks piercing the glittering
sky, and cloathed in all its splendor. A little convent, like
_Paraclete's white walls and silver springs_, stood in an umbrageous
cleft of the mountain; whose icicled trees, and frozen stream, promise
a luxuriant scene in verdant summer.
But Mount Calemberg, with all its beauties, was not as fair to him, as
cloud-capt Cheviot, clad in her storms, and standing sublime amidst
the roaring torrent, and the shouts of the hunters echoing from her
hills. He sighed for the joyous chace, for the jocund hour of return.
He thought the voices of his uncle's boon companions, would no more
sound discordant in his ear; even for the cry of their dogs, and their
own loud halloos, reverberating from the walls of the old hall of
Bamborough, what would he now give?
"Churl that I was," cried he, "not to allow people to be happy, but in
my own way! And fool too, to despise them for being happy, with the
humbler talents bestowed on them by the God of nature!"
Louis blushed to feel, that we must suffer, to value all that is
bestowed.
His wandering eye could not elude the attraction of another point. It
often turned to the yet frozen Danube, and tried, by straining its
powers, to discern amongst the variegated groups, any thing like the
person of his interdicted friend; but he gazed in vain. The river was
too distant to distinguish individuals; and all he saw, was a moving
pageantry, which might interest, but could never satisfy him, as it was
probable it contained Wharton, and it was impossible for him to see
him, if it did.
Louis was constant in these walks, and the Sieur as regular in his
evening visits. The one, always greeted his governor with cheerfulness;
and the other, his pupil, with a stateliness, which shewed approbation,
only by silence from reproof. But Louis was content, and the whole
glided smoothly on.
The name of Wharton never occurred between them, to disturb the
unruffled surface, but once; and that was occasioned by the Duke's
parting letter to Louis, dropping out of his private portfolio, one
evening when Ignatius asked if he could furnish him with a sheet of
paper bearing the English water-mark. As the letter fell with the seal
to the floor, the Sieur's observing eye recognised the hand-writing,
and, though unused to the bending mood, he stooped to take it up.
"You have corresponded with Wharton!" cried he, holding the letter in
his hand; "what, did he tell you, was his object in leaving England
last autumn?" "Nothing, Sir;" replied Louis, stretching out his hand
rather too eagerly to receive the letter; but Ignatius retained it.
"That was the first, and the only letter, with which he ever honoured
me."
"It is in answer then, to one from yourself?"
"No; I have never written to him. That was sent to me the night
he quitted England, to go----he did not say whither; and so the
correspondence ended."
"And, as certainly, he did not desire its continuance," replied the
Sieur. He observed Louis start, and redden with an air of offended
incredulity. "Else why," resumed he, "did he omit naming to you
the place of his destination? But," added he, throwing the letter
contemptuously on the table, "Wharton was always a creature of caprice,
and you will not be the last ball his racket will strike out of his
careing."
Stung with the sarcasm of this remark, mortified at being supposed
liable to such trifling, and jealous for the sincerity of his friend,
with flashing eyes Louis took up the letter, and held it silently in
his hand. He stood a few minutes, struggling to subdue the resentment
that was ready to burst from his lips. The Sieur appeared to have
already forgotten the matter, and was calmly examining the manuscripts
on the table. This apathy was more galling, than perhaps further
remark. Louis pressed on his swelling heart the recollection of the
vow he had made to himself, _to bear all_, as well as _to do all_, the
will of this arrogant man; and turning towards his port-folio, he was
replacing the letter in the case, when Ignatius looking up, said in a
voice that was careless of being heard,
"It is pity, to see ingenuous youth treasure a counterfeit, for true
metal."
"Your observation, Sir," said Louis, "does not touch the Duke of
Wharton."
"But it might you, Louis;" coolly answered the Sieur, "for you hold a
proof of his ephemeral attachments, in your hand."
Louis felt an instant impulse to disprove at once this contemptuous
inference, by requesting Ignatius to read the Duke's letter; but the
next moment he bethought him, whether there were ought in the contents
his misjudged friend might wish not to be exposed to an enemy. For
such, he could not but perceive the inveterate Ignatius was to Wharton.
There was a mixture of malignant contempt, with evident apprehension
of his influence somewhere, which marked the sentiment the Sieur
entertained for him; but whether from personal dislike, or solely on
account of the asserted hostility between him and Baron de Ripperda,
Louis could not be sure; though he certainly saw hatred in his
governor's deeply sunken eyes, whenever he spoke of the Duke.
To persist in silence, seemed to Louis to be sanctioning these
calumnies on his friend, and to continue asserting without offering
proof, he was aware would only redouble the scorn of his antagonist.
Placed in a torturing dilemma, he stood recollecting whether the
contents of the Duke's letter were such that he might safely shew; when
the Sieur, rising from his seat, said in an exasperating tone of pity;
"put up your relic, Louis! though I see you are properly ashamed of a
credulity too natural to the vanity of youth."
"No, Sir;" returned he, opening the letter with a trembling hand; "I
should detest myself, if I thought I had a spark within me of any
thing so mean as vanity. But if I had, Duke Wharton is of too noble a
nature to play upon credulity so worthless. That letter, Sir, if you
will condescend to read it, will shew you that I am honoured with his
friendship."
Ignatius had now wrought Louis to the point at which he aimed, but
maintaining his air of indifference, he took the letter from the
agitated hand of his pupil, without observation. Louis presented it
with a proud look, and stood as proudly watching his countenance while
he read it. The Sieur went over it twice; he then coldly returned it,
with the remark, "it is beyond my skill to expound so curious a riddle,
but as you are his friend, you doubtless have a key?"
All the self-confidence, which a moment before had dilated the
indignant heart of Louis, fell in an instant. He did not anticipate
this sort of observation on the letter, and alarmed at the impressions
which must have given rise to it, he stood in speechless embarrassment.
"This piece of paper," continued Ignatius, "is mere nonsense to me;
and proves nothing, of what you to wish prove, unless you can do it by
explaining its meaning?"
Louis remained silent.
The Sieur proceeded:--"You ought not to have put such seeming foolery
into my hands, unless you were prepared to be its commentary."
"Then return it to me, Sir," cried Louis, overwhelmed with confusion,
"and forget that you have seen it."
"I never forget any thing that I have seen, and, I am not to be trifled
with. You have called my attention to this letter; you have shewn it
to me, as a proof of Duke Wharton's confidence in you: but I see only
a farrago of words, which, you have now pledged yourself to put into
reasonable meaning by your explanation."
Louis's consternation was so great, at so unlooked for a consequence
of what he had done, that he could not recollect what he had said,
or might have implied to the Sieur; and he continued to gaze on the
ground, humbled to the dust. "Oh!" cried he, in the depths of his soul,
"was I then under the immediate control of detested, mischievous
vanity, at the very moment I disclaimed its presence in my heart!
Wretch that I am, to have been betrayed by any motive, to open the
faintest glimmering of light upon the secrets of my friend, to this
inexorable man!"
The recollection of Wharton's words, _I put my life into your hands!_
rose before his mental sight in characters of blood; and turning sick
at heart, he supported a momentary failure of his limbs, by grasping
the back of a chair. The sight of this agitation only stimulated the
curiosity of Ignatius, or, whatever else it was that impelled him to
persecute his unoffending charge to such a point of distress.--He
resumed.
"You have gone too far, to be silent now, I can comprehend, that
certain phrases in this enigmatical epistle, refer to former
conferences with you. Brutus and Cassius are not usually masquing
names in affairs of gallantry, therefore, the nature of your mutual
confidence I can guess; and it is necessary for your own, as well as
the Duke's honour, that you should tell me their object."
"Sir," said Louis, "I have already done too much for my own honour.--The
Duke's can never be injured by any thing I can say or withhold. And, I
will mention his name no more."
"Young man," said Ignatius, "you must not add obstinacy to rashness.
You have allowed yourself to be made privy to the schemes of a man who
is suspected by his country! Be aware, that to conceal treason, is to
share it."
Louis did not speak.
The Sieur continued: "Besides, you are answerable to your country, and
to your father, who has devoted you with himself, to her interests, to
reveal to him, as to your confessor, every event of your life. Much
more, then, a circumstance like this. For, on your father's intimate
acquaintance with every political device which could possibly disturb
Europe, depends his guiding to perfection the mighty machine he is
now constructing to give peace to the world. Hence, the glory of your
father, as well as your vow to Spain, commands you to bend all minor
considerations to the great duty of your life; and to confide to him,
through me, every confidence of a political nature which has passed
between you and the Duke of Wharton."
"The glory of my father," replied Louis, "can never be augmented by
his son's faithlessness. And could Spain require such a proof of my
attachment to her, the law of God, which is the everlasting appeal from
all human ordinances, would sanction me in abjuring my vow!"
"You grant that Wharton has engaged your faithfulness! A secret
implied, is a secret revealed; and further withholding a full
acknowledgement, is finesse with me, and irreverence to your father.
The Duke left Vienna a few weeks ago, secretly, and I have reason to
believe, you could guess whither he is gone?"
"Sir," answered Louis, "I neither say, nor do not say, that I have
been honoured with any confidence whatever, by the Duke of Wharton;
but I repeat, that neither to my father, nor to any man living, do I
think it necessary to betray a trust in me. Therefore, as I cannot
repeat discourses I have never heard, and will not repeat discourses
confided to me; you cannot be surprized that I hold my peace. My
inconsideration, to give it the mildest appellation, has gone far
enough, in shewing Duke Wharton's letter, however indifferent its
subject, without his permission."
The Sieur fixed his investigating eye upon the determined brow of his
pupil.
"Louis de Montemar," cried he, "you have imprudence enough in your
composition to ruin a state; and sufficient stubbornness of what you
call Honour, to ensure your own destruction. If you do not mean to
relax the one, you must learn to confirm your mind against the wild
influence of the other. Act less from passion, and more from principle.
Be wary of friend, as well as foe; and never speak from your heart,
till your words have paused in your head, to take the judgment of your
circumspection. Had you shewn this letter to one less interested in
your welfare, than your father's friend, the suspicion its style would
have awakened, might have wrought consequences ruinous to the Duke, and
not much less full of evil to yourself. I shall now drop the subject
for ever, because I see that you will not neglect its lesson."
With the gratitude of one escaped from a snare, into which he thought
he had desperately, and therefore blameably rushed, Louis took the
letter, which the Sieur presented to him. His ingenuous cheek flushed
with displeasure at himself for having been beguiled, rather than at
the subtle trier of his wariness; and respectfully, though silently, he
bowed his head to his unanswerable monitor. Ignatius fell immediately
into his usual abstracted mood, and soon after left the room.